The ALMOST Disaster Walk
Wow. We had a great day today. First, Eo and Henry stayed in their crates all day. As far as I can tell, Henry did not leave a giant puddle of drool in his crate. Eowyn didn’t act aggressive towards Henry at all, and she didn’t carry on for a huge long time when it was time to go for a walk. And the best was yet to come — the feeling I had when we were done with that walk.
The walk started out as a disaster. Every last thing that Eo is reactive to, from joggers to other dogs, arrived at once, right as we went out the door. And every time I got her calmed down again, another one would appear. I almost turned around and went back in — especially when I saw the woman walking the hellaciously reactive border collie that lived at the end of my block towards me. I know for sure that I let a few choice words escape my lips. (In a calm, quiet tone, of course.)
I’m not sure if tonight was the culmination of two YEARS of training Eowyn, or if it was just that I got REALLY stubborn and pissed off at the dogs, and managed to focus and control the seething grumblies in a way that led to success. Either way, I managed to do the “dances with dogs” training exercise tonight to a point where not only were both dogs doing it and doing it well, but we were actually having fun with it! Eowyn was heeling on lead (a first!) and only halfway reacted when a woman with some other dogs was walking them out to get the mail.
(For those not following along at home — Dances With Dogs is what I call the “lots of quick direction changes” training — it’s intended to teach a dog that consistently pulls and doesn’t watch the handler to heel on lead. Eowyn has pulled since the day she was born. Tonight was the FIRST night I have ever had her watching me and ignoring other people, dogs, and for ’scary things’ to jump out from under every car.)
The change was in my attitude. I don’t know how to describe it, but we’ve been working a lot on “calming” activities recently. I’ve been working to control my behavior, and I’ve been working to get the dogs to reliably get excited or slow down. The purpose of any command from the handler should be to calm the dog and focus their energy on the task at hand. (Thank you, Jennie.) That’s what I’ve been missing all these years. Sheesh.